


After The Wall

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cutting, Drug Use, Established Relationship, M/M, S6 Spoilers, Sibling Incest, the great wall of sam, wincest without any sex scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:09:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was originally three short little stories about the consequences of Sam's hell wall being destroyed, but I'm posting them here as one story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The Wall

_“What the fuck is it, exactly, that I’m supposed to do?”_ , Dean thinks, for approximately the 2,738th time in the past week.

There’s enough already. He’s lost his best friend. He has no idea how to fix anything and he’s not used to feeling like this. Dean always knows what to do. He is a fixer. He does not look on, wishing he could help. He helps. He does… _things_ for Christ’s sake, he DOES things. Cas is gone, Bobby is distant and Sam – 

Jesus, Dean never thought he’d see something like this ever in his life. He’s seen Hell, he’s seen the Apocalypse, he’s seen demons and monsters and death. Oh, and Death. But coming back to their room and seeing _this_ again is unbearable.

The wall has come down. His Sammy is broken. Dean knows what it’s like, having to remember being in Hell. But Sam was in the Cage. He has no idea what his brother has suffered, exactly the things he remembers, what happened for that time when he was gone, because Sam doesn’t speak anymore. Dean does his best to control it, but there’s no way to keep his eyes on his brother 24/7.

So here he is again. Walking into the room, and looking down at this wreck who used to be someone else, naked and passed out. An empty bottle of Southern Comfort on the floor next to the bed, next to another empty bottle of Southern Comfort on the floor next to the bed. A bloody razor blade on the little wooden table. Sharp, straight lines down the inside of Sam’s left arm, down the left side of his torso, the inside of his left thigh, the outside of his left thigh, and Dean guessed Sam passed out by the time he got to ripping lines through his skin about halfway down his calf.

Another razor blade, this one clean and lying on its side, reflection gleaming in the mirror with the tiny remnants of cocaine that are left behind. 

His brother is a drunk and a cutter and right on his way to becoming a drug addict. Dean doesn’t think he’s ever been so torn in his entire life. _Let him have it_ , a piece of his brain pipes up, what the fuck, he’s got to have some way to cope and if he has to be a little self-destructive while he finds his way, just back up and let it burn off, because it will. Right? It’s a phase. A defense mechanism against these feelings and once he gets a handle on it, all this will go away, because it’s _Sam_ and Sam is stronger than anyone except for Dean gives him credit for, and he’s going to land on his feet on this other side of this and find a way to keep on moving without this bullshit.

And there goes the other part of Dean’s brain. _End this NOW, make it stop, don’t just stand there like an idiot while your brother destroys himself_. Dean knows he could do it. He could stop everything else, he could lock Sammy in a room like he did before. Twice before, he had done it, and hated it, but knew he had to, to make Sam better, so he could do it again, no matter how much his heart broke into a million pieces to hear his baby boy scream his name and beg to be let go. 

But for right this minute, Dean was without any kind of compass at all. What was his life without his Sammy? The real Sammy? What was he supposed to do?  
He would have asked Cas. If he could.

Fucking Cas, who did this to his baby brother, who lied to them, who helped Dean even when he knew it would not bridge the gap between them. Cas honestly believed he had been doing the right thing. Dean had managed a few moments of sympathy, knowing he’d done some stupid shit himself when he had a crazy idea in his head. 

Until this. The whole “I am God” thing was terrifying, yes, and no matter what had happened between them, Dean still worried about Cas. Until this. Castiel had broken his brother, despite his promise of saving Sam.

So, here was the question. Did Dean get on with the process of trying to save Sam? Or did he wait and let Sam save himself?

Back to the moment. A naked Sammy sprawled out on top of the covers used to be like a complimentary box seat to the greatest show on Earth. But like this, it was just an icepick in Dean’s chest cavity.

Fixing. The rest of the fixing would have to wait, since Dean had no plan for it. But he takes the mirror with the clean razor blade and washes them both off in the sink, resists the urge to throw them in the garbage and puts them back into the side pocket of Sam’s duffle, seeing the telltale tiny, bright-colored plastic Ziploc bag that let him know Sam had indeed passed out before he was done. He drops the empty liquor bottles into the trash and heads back over to the bed. The bloody blade is immediately discarded, and Dean starts to touch the straight, even, almost OCD-perfect lines cut into his brother’s skin. None are deep or dangerous, which Dean guesses is a bright side, if such a thing exists. He makes his way soundlessly to the first aid kit in his bag and starts gently spreading antibiotic cream over the cuts. Sammy might need whatever he is getting from this self-destruction, but fuck if Dean is going to let him risk getting necrotizing fasciitis or MRSA or whatever from this bullshit. 

Because this flesh belongs to him. Sammy belongs to him and Dean takes care of what’s his. 

*****

“Don’t do this to me, Dean. Please. _Please!_ ”, Sam begged, tears in his eyes, holding on to his brother as tightly as he could.

And Christ, Dean didn’t want to, he _really_ didn’t want to, but he’d done everything else he could think of. He’d tried riding it out, giving Sam time to rip himself apart for a while. He figured his brother was entitled to at least some kind of self-destructive behavior, he’d tried to be patient. But it only got worse. Two empty bottles of booze at the end of the day had turned into three, and then four. A gram of coke turned into a quarter of an ounce a day, with Sam bruised and reeking and refusing to explain how he got the money for the drugs. And the cuts…they started crossing over each other, getting deeper, ending up in more dangerous places. 

“I’m so sorry, Sammy. I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t want to, _please_ believe me baby”, Dean replied, trying so hard to hold back his own tears, carding his left hand gently through Sam’s hair. “This is the last thing I ever wanted to have to do, but you’ve got to get this shit out of you, it’s only going to get worse and I can’t watch it anymore, I just can’t, if I lose you again I’ll…”, Dean trailed off, not knowing how to even finish that sentence. “It’s going to be all right, I’ll take care of you, and I know taking care of you sometimes isn’t doing what you want me to do but it’s all I’ve got and I don’t…” Fuck, again, he can’t even finish his thought, so completely distraught by what had happened to Sam and by the only thing he knew to do about it. His tears were flowing freely now, no matter how hard he had tried not to let it happen.

Sam was shaking in Dean’s arms, terrified, overcome by the memories of the last times he had spent in the place where his brother was sending him. He begged him again and again, holding on tight but knowing deep inside that there was would be no respite, no changing Dean’s mind with pleas and tears and what his big brother always referred to as the “puppy dog eyes of doom”. Sam never wanted to admit that he gave Dean that look on purpose because he knew it had power over him, but at this point nothing he did was going to make a difference.

It wasn’t going to be the same this time. He would not be thrown physically around the room by the remnants of demons inside him, he would very likely not hallucinate that he was being physically tortured, because this was another kind of detox altogether. Unfortunately, sending Sam to an inpatient drug or alcohol treatment facility where they talked through the feelings and hoping that inspirational stories and psychological therapy would get him through to the other side of his addictions in a few months was just not an option. They didn’t have the money, the time, the luxury of doing things that way. The fight was not over. If they were going to find a way to survive their former friend and confidante’s newly developed God-complex, Sam had to get himself back. They’d still have to deal with how he’d handle his memories of the Cage, and Dean felt confident that they’d find a way to work through that. 

For right now, though, it had been long enough. Dean had spent plenty of time drowning his sorrows in a bottle, but he’d never been incapacitated by an alcohol addiction, he’d never been addicted to any kind of drugs, other than that brief time in his early twenties when he’d picked up a nicotine habit. And he’d certainly not ever purposely hurt himself, badly, every _fucking_ day for more than a month. He was more terrified of losing his baby boy to this than he’d ever been of losing him on a hunt. 

“I’m sorry, baby, sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, please forgive me, I don’t know what else to do.”, Dean repeated over and over, moving back enough to try to kiss away the tears from Sam’s beautiful face. And finally, Sam lowered his head onto Dean’s chest, still sobbing but then looking up, almost out of breath from sobbing, straight on into his older brother’s eyes for the first time in weeks, unable to speak but nodding his assent and making sure he knew that he understood what Dean was doing. 

Dean pulled Sam’s face to his, kissed him so gently and lovingly, because it was all he had now. With every bit of strength he could pull up, he took his arms from Sam’s face and shoulder, and moved backward just a step. 

Sam looked straight on at Dean again one more time before the door to Bobby’s panic room closed in front of him, creating a physical barrier between him and the man he loved more than anything in the world. The sound of the lock turning was the loudest noise either of them had ever heard, they were both sure of that. 

The heaviest steps Dean could remember taking in a long, long time were the steps he took back up the stairs into Bobby’s living space. Bobby knew better than to speak, he just stayed out of the way. As was his habit, Dean went straight into the kitchen. He looked at the beer in the fridge, then at the bottle of Jack on the counter. 

He grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filled it with tap water, sat at the kitchen table and wondered how long it would take this time. Then he put his head down onto his crossed arms and let go, weeping without shame, and pushing back the urge to say a prayer. 

*****

Dean never even considered the possibility that it would take this long. How could it possibly take longer to physically detox from booze & coke than it took to detox from _demon blood_ for fuck’s sake?

Days. Long ass horrific fucking days, a nightmare that Dean thought he’d never survive except when he reminded himself that he wasn’t the one who was going through the real pain, the pain that his baby boy was feeling. How many more times? How many more times could he hear Sammy calling his name, reverting back to their childhood, “De…please De…I need you, _please_ , let me out, I’ll be good, I promise, I won’t do it again, I’ll do whatever you say, just please let me out, I need you, _please_ …” 

Dean waited as long as he could. He waited until Sam stopped calling for him, until there was just silence, and he knew then that his brother was sleeping, actually sleeping for the first time since the wall came down ( _yeah, the wall didn’t “come down”, it was pushed down_ ). 

Bobby and Dean talked for a while, debated whether or not it was time, Dean obviously taking the “YES, IT’S TIME” part of the argument as Bobby was more cautious and not so sure it had been long enough yet. But Bobby didn’t hold out much hope that he’d win that battle, knowing what he’d known for so many years about his boys (and yes, he did consider them to be his, he was the only patriarchal figure who’d been in their lives for years) but had never openly acknowledged the, uh, non-traditional brotherly affection that Sam and Dean had for each other. He’d accepted it, but never spoken of it, knowing that it was the right thing to do, at least for now. Maybe one day they’d all be okay with things being out in the open, but right now none of them were ready yet. 

Dean was the one who made the call, but Bobby was the one who opened the door. He had to do it, because Dean had tried and couldn’t pull up enough strength to walk down the stairs and face his brother after what he’d put him through.

The sound of the lock disengaging and the door opening was like Heaven for Sam, that tiny little bit of Heaven that he’d had a taste of so long ago. But he’d expected to see Dean on the other side, and while he was grateful enough to fall into Bobby’s arms, he wondered why it was Bobby and not Dean there to rescue him. 

“Bobby”, Sam gasped, his throat raw and swollen,”thank you, thank you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” 

Bobby put his arm around Sam’s broad and hard shoulders and replied “Nothin’ to be sorry for, boy, quit all that nonsense and come on back to us now, ya hear? We just want you back, ya thickheaded kid.” 

And so on they went, up the stairs to where Dean was waiting, standing with a tense posture, his arms crossed against his chest, hoping to keep his heart from being physically ripped out as he prepared to face Sam for the first time since he’d left him down in the panic room to get this shit out of his system, to hope that he’d get back his Sammy. His brother, his love, his whole world. 

The second the two of them locked eyes, Bobby knew it was time to make himself scarce. He didn’t even bother with fake excuses, just disappeared to another room so that Dean and Sam could at least try to make their way to reconciliation. 

“Dean”, Sam whispered as soon as he saw his brother, who looked more pale and broken than he’d seen him for years. Sam had a new clarity about him, and he knew, just _fucking_ knew how badly he’d hurt Dean while he was hurting himself. His first instinct was to tell Dean how terribly sorry he was for the things he’d done, and for the pain he’d inflicted on his brother _AGAIN_. But that particular instinct was gone the minute Dean pressed his body and lips againts Sam's.

Dean didn’t seem to be interested in apologies, because that would instinctively make him respond by telling Sammy how sorry he was for locking him up again. But he wasn’t sorry for doing it, so he didn’t want to say that he was. 

Instead, he just shot his arms out and wrapped Sammy as tight as he possibly could, holding on to him like he’d wanted to for weeks, the two of them kissing so softly and gently, then more deeply and passionately. Finally, the need to take a breath overcame them both and Dean spoke as he pulled back.

“You know I had to do it, baby, I thought of every single other thing, I couldn’t come up with anything else. I just needed you back. After everything else we’ve gotten through, there was no way I could lose you to _this_. Please forgive me.”

He got his answer when Sam returned his embrace like no time had passed at all. There was no trust lost between them. Sam wasn't angry. Dean wasn't angry. It was a testament to the fact that everything they had that linked them together was _so fucking real_.

The hesitance that both brothers felt momentarily was washed away in the tiniest minute. Dean took Sam by the hand and pulled him toward the bedroom, were he planned to make up this evening for every single second they’d had to spent apart.

**Author's Note:**

> It's blast from the past night. I'm posting really old stories, the very first ones I wrote in this fandom. I honestly think they're not too bad for early attempts :)


End file.
